Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand at a press conference about recognizing Palestinian statehood in Ottawa on Wednesday.Patrick Doyle/Reuters
When France’s President Emmanuel Macron announced he’d recognize a Palestinian state, Donald Trump dismissed it as irrelevant. When British Prime Minister Keir Starmer threatened to do so, Mr. Trump mostly shrugged. His response to Mark Carney’s announcement was to suggest it could imperil a Canada-U.S. trade deal.
Perhaps Mr. Carney had taken Mr. Trump’s ambivalence to the European moves as an opening to follow suit. But at any rate, the Prime Minister knew there was a risk. The United States’ stalwart political backing of Israel has always factored into Canada’s decisions. And Mr. Carney, sweating out a trade-deal deadline, certainly knows Mr. Trump can change his tune.
Yet Mr. Carney stepped into a Wednesday evening news conference to signal a big, controversial shift from Canada’s long-standing policy on the Middle East.
Explainer: What does Canada’s recognition of a Palestinian state mean in practice?
Usually, if you have to bet on what a Canadian prime minister might do in that circumstance, you’d wager on caution. Perhaps they’d say that maybe one day they’d recognize a Palestinian state, or wait till a trade deal was in hand.
Instead, Mr. Carney announced that Canada will recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September.
With that, Mr. Carney has signalled that he’s willing to take foreign-policy risks. And an inclination to break with the U.S. to act with European allies.
The reason that the Prime Minister gave for announcing the decision now – that the prospects for a two-state solution with a Palestinian state existing side by side with Israel have been gravely eroded – was arguably true a month ago, or six months ago.
Mr. Carney cited the Israeli Knesset’s recent non-binding vote calling for the annexation of the West Bank – Palestinian territory controlled not by Hamas but by Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority – as well as West Bank settlement plans, among other things.
But it was the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza, the warnings of starvation and reports of Palestinians being killed while seeking food, that set the train of events in motion.
In May, Mr. Macron, Mr. Starmer and Mr. Carney jointly signalled frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and declared they would take “concrete actions” if Israel didn’t pull back its military offensive and allow more aid into Gaza.
In the past week, when Mr. Macron and Mr. Starmer announced plans to recognize Palestine, Mr. Carney had a choice between jumping on that train or letting it pass by in silence. Despite divisions within the Liberal Party, there was more pressure to speak up.
But this wasn’t realpolitik. Mr. Carney has given the impression his foreign policy would focus on cold, hard national interests. Risking a rift with the U.S. to make a statement on the Mideast isn’t that.
Recognition now is essentially a legal declaration. There is no Palestinian state with control over its territory and borders. That won’t change now.
The goal of recognition is supposed to be to buttress support for the Palestinian Authority by promoting the idea that it could peacefully establish a real state for Palestinians. But that remains a faint hope. Mr. Abbas’s Fatah movement is unpopular and widely condemned as corrupt.
Carney’s policy shift on Palestinian statehood met with cautious hope, criticism by Canadians
Mr. Carney insisted Canada’s recognition of Palestine is “predicated” on Mr. Abbas living up to his promise to hold elections – in which Hamas would be ineligible – in 2026. But the skeptics are right to point out that Mr. Abbas, now 89, hasn’t held elections since 2006 and he might still renege on holding a vote Fatah is likely to lose.
All that means that recognizing Palestine is, to say the least, no easy ticket to a new Mideast peace process. But it was a big move for Mr. Carney.
Canada’s long-standing policy of supporting a two-state solution had always asserted that it would be the result of negotiation. That hadn’t changed even as successive governments shifted the political attitude on the Middle East. Breaking with tradition was a risk that would inevitably spark criticism from someone.
Now Mr. Carney has made a new policy – asserting the world must push for a Palestinian state before it is too late.
That has already raised criticism from Liberal MP Anthony Housefather. There will be more critics among Liberal supporters. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre argued it rewards Hamas for violence.
And although Mr. Trump eventually said that Canada’s recognition of Palestine wasn’t going to be a deal-breaker in trade talks, it was a risk.
Mr. Carney showed that on foreign policy, he’s a prime minister willing to take risks.